McDonald, Michael Bruce. "The Strength and Sorrow of Young Stephen: The Dialectic of Harmony and Dissonance." Critical Essays on James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Ed. Brady, Philip;
Carens, James F.
Critical Essays on British Literature. New York:
G.K. Hall; London: Prentice Hall International,
1998.
265-89.
ISBN 0-7838-0035-5.
CC 62. Joyce's art encompasses both harmony and dissonance. J's works portray the ultimate inability to achieve harmony. J's aesthetic response to the "facile harmonies he thought typical of the Irish Literary Revival" (268) result in his mediation between a colonial language used universally and a seldom-used native language that nevertheless invokes a prehistoric harmony. Stephen himself realizes that Irish culture is a false harmony, and tries to transform the "noise" of that culture and impact of daily life into "dissonance.".